The Infamous Howard Marks to Hit the Screen as 'Mr. Nice'

On the one side, there's Howard Marks -- international drug smuggler and U.K. spy. On the other, there's some faces that you might not expect to find in international drug and spy territory.

The Hollywood Reporter posts that Rhys Ifans, Chloe Sevigny, and David Thewlis are wrapping up negotiations to star in Mr. Nice -- Bernard Rose's adaptation of Marks' autobiography of the same name. Ifans, who long ago played Puff in Michel Gondry's Human Nature, will head the cast as Marks. Once Britain's most-wanted man, he morphed from Oxford grad and teacher into a drug smuggler -- all to impress his wife Judy (Sevigny). Thewlis comes into the picture as an Irish Republican Army boss he asks for a job, which leads Marks to his other gig -- informant for British intelligence.

But wait -- don't expect lots of violence and action -- according to Wikipedia, Marks says that he never used violence during his smuggling career. But with these actors, and the director behind Immortal Beloved, methinks the action won't matter.